


where your reach meets the view

by akadiene



Series: the people you know 'verse [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 15:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11558487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akadiene/pseuds/akadiene
Summary: Liam misses home so physically it's an ache.





	where your reach meets the view

**Author's Note:**

> for nurseydexweek hurt/comfort day. i didn’t think i’d get anything in at all but woke up early this morning despite my day off and this happened. technically it’s in the row upon row universe but probably can be read without it. as always, title from the once’s song for memory: stuck in a town where your reach meets the view / where the dreams that you held are both fleeting and few / they crackle like fire on their way out the floo / well each day you work and weekends you’re due

Summer in inland Massachussetts is not the same as summer in seaside Maine. 

For one, it’s too hot. Without the breeze coming off the Atlantic and the constant rolling fog and the ocean minutes away for swimming, and of course without any air conditioning in the Haus, Liam is certain he’s going to melt away into so much sweat and salt and Derek’s going to be forced to wipe him up off the floor of their bedroom, if he hasn’t already melted too. Bitty makes fun of them every chance he gets, and Chowder, though more sympathetic, doesn’t hold back his eye-rolls when they Skype him, both shirtless and a foot away from each other so as not to transfer body heat, mostly-useless fans pointed at them from three different angles.

Their landlord hired Liam back in May to look after his other properties after seeing all the work he’d put into the Haus to keep it liveable, and it’s good work that Liam enjoys. It doesn’t pay as well as fishing – no job for students ever could, and his uncle says 2017 is the best season they’ve seen in a decade – but the landlord says if Liam wants to keep doing it during the year he’ll pay his rent then too. It’s a good deal, and Derek’s got a job teaching at some summer camp for kids on campus, so it’s alright, really. It works out. 

But as with the heat, another thing Liam didn’t count on was the loneliness.

After last year he and Derek didn’t want to spend another summer apart, and they’ve got the Haus to themselves all the time, except when Bitty visits with Jack or Shitty and Lardo drive up for the day. Once Liam’s younger sister Katie visits for a weekend but it’s hard to come down often and she’s doing her apprenticeship now and can’t get much time off. And she’s got friends, at home, and their oldest brother Jake and his wife Melissa and their daughter Ava are closer than Liam, so he can’t blame Katie for wanting to spend time with her five-year-old niece instead of her brother.

He doesn’t know anybody here, not really. Some of the other Samwell athletes are familiar faces, they’ve partied together before, but he wouldn’t consider them friends. And he’s got Derek with him, of course, and he loves him and they’re happy and he doesn’t regret a single decision that led him to staying at Samwell over the summer, but he misses – his family, and the friends he grew up with who all stayed home for the summer and who post pictures of bonfires and beach days and hiking trips and big lobsters they’ve caught and beautiful sunrises on the boats he can’t experience, and he misses his team, and he misses being known, being recognized, being home. 

And he didn’t think he’d be nostalgic over waking up before the sunrise every morning and the smell of lobster burrowing itself so deep in his skin he can’t wash it all off when he gets home and the way his body hurts and his hands get infected from the lobster juices and the sting of the salt and twelve- or thirteen-hour days when the catch is good and fearless seagulls swooping down to steal his lunch and the rough, sometimes overwhelming loud voices of the swearing men on the wharves but. Sometimes he misses it so physically it’s an ache. 

Derek, of course, notices, though Liam doesn’t say anything. 

“We should do something,” he says one evening. They’re sitting in the basement on lawn chairs having some beer, and it smells a little gross down there but it’s the coolest place in the Haus so more often then not that’s where they find themselves after work. 

“Do what,” Liam says. He wishes he’d brought his punching bag from home when his dad had offered to unhook it and drive it down because he’s frustrated and wouldn’t mind something to hit. 

“Well, you know there’s a week in between camps,” Derek says. “That starts next Wednesday.”

“Alright.”

“Well, what if we took a road trip?”

“Derek,” Liam says, and sighs. “I have to work.” 

The condensation around his beer can drips down his fingers and he has no energy to wipe it off. In any case the cold feels good. 

“Just ask Joe. You’ve got nothing to lose by asking, and it’s not like Jason Street is going to fall apart for a few days without you.”

“Joe  _is_  a nice guy,” Liam says. And he’s salaried, not paid hourly. “But, like, what would we do, anyway? Gas isn’t cheap.”

“Liam, babe. There’s two of us to pay for it. And – well, I thought maybe we could go see your parents, and you know they’ll fill the tank before we leave like they always do, and we can stop by and see Mel and Jake, and maybe Bitty and Jack, and Shitty and Lards, and then if we have time we could spend the last few days at my parents’, who will probably take us for groceries and get whatever else we need.”

“That’s a lot of time in a car.”

Derek sits forward in his chair across from Liam’s and sets his beer down to take Liam’s hands. Derek’s are also cold and damp from his can but holding on tightly. 

“So let’s do all the touristy stuff you never got to see because you’ve spent like, every single second of your life outside of school working or playing hockey. We’ll get out and take super cheesy pictures and all that.“

Liam sees Derek lift his hands to his mouth and feels him kiss them, then Liam sighs again. He’s tired and sore from working all day and maybe on another day he would say no and stand firm but as it is he can’t say no to Derek. He can already hear the gulls and smell the seaweed and see his parents’ house with its decrepit swing set in the front yard and the fire pit out back. 

“Alright,” he says. Derek laughs and punches his fist in the air. “Let me make a phone call.”

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at [bluegrasshole,](http://www.bluegrasshole.tumblr.com) where you can also find my [row upon row tag](http://www.bluegrasshole.tumblr.com/tagged/row+upon+row+tag) with all kinds of thoughts and analysis from the past year since i wrote the original. there's also 3k of a potential full-sized sequel i'll never finish on there, if it interests you.


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